30 October 2017

Passchendaele: “A big jelly pot of wet mud and water… quivering under the fire of the guns.”

Jack Winter Quelch was born at Tyndall, Manitoba in 1896. His parents were Arthur and Gertrude and his siblings were Edith, Stephen and Philip. The family farmed near Birtle but the children attended school in Beulah.

Jack enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1915 and served as a sniper with the 44th Battalion. He was in the trenches at Passchendaele, which he described to his mother in a letter dated 29 October 1917:

“We have just completed a few days ago, one of the worst trips in the lines since I have been in France. I have seen and been in some dirty holes in this country but this was the worst… I thought I had seen a few thousand guns while I have been in France but have never seen the mass of guns there are in this place and the incessant bombardment. The country is a big jelly pot of wet mud and water shaking or rather quivering under the fire of the guns. There are planes in thousands and I give Hinies planes their due, they come over in bunches of dozen or so and drop bombs and use their machine guns on both the troops in the line and in billets in the rear, if you could call them billets at all. I have seen a few hundred dead, too, but this is the worst it’s an ungodly hole. From the front line to three miles back there is hell I think I will leave it at that. They are lying all over, shell holes full of water and corpses[.] Hineys shell fire is the worst I have seen yet.”

Search Tip: All of Jack Quelch’s letters have been digitized and can be read online. Search “Jack Winter Quelch” in Keystone.

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23 October 2017

Mina Mowat, nursing sister, Canadian Army Medical Corps

Wilhelmina (Mina) Mowat, later Mina Waugh, was born in Hepworth, Ontario on 1 January 1888. She graduated from Brandon General Hospital's Training School for Nurses in 1913. She enlisted as a nursing sister in the Canadian Army Medical Corps in 1915 and served in England, France and Belgium.

Photographs of Mina Mowat (also known as “Mowie”), were preserved in a scrapbook album compiled after the war by her husband, Richard Douglas Waugh. He served in the First World War with the Lord Strathcona’s Horse. Many of the photographs were taken by Mina and show her at work, with nursing colleagues and with soldiers, as well as enjoying some leisure time and travel.

Mina Mowat’s first posting was at #11 Canadian General Hospital at Moore Barracks in Shorncliffe, England from June 1915 to February 1916. She was then sent to #2 Canadian General Hospital at LeTreport, France where she worked for a year. In February 1917, she was posted in France to No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station near Poperinghe, Belgium. She suffered a leg fracture in a fall in April 1917 and returned to England to recover. Mina was then posted again to the #11 Canadian General Hospital at Moore Barracks in Shorncliffe. Following the war, Mina Mowat returned to Manitoba where she met and married her husband in 1920.

Search Tip: Search “Waugh family” in Keystone to find these and other records created Mina (Mowat) Waugh and other members of the Waugh family.

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16 October 2017

Minnie Campbell's military war album

Minnie Julia Beatrice Campbell (nee Buck) was born in Canada West (now Ontario) in 1862. She moved to Winnipeg in 1884, joining her new husband who had moved here a couple of years earlier. Colin H. Campbell was a lawyer and Manitoba politician who served as attorney general from 1900 to 1911. Minnie Campbell was a leading organizer, supporter and fundraiser for many organizations including the IODE, the Red Cross, the YWCA, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

The Minnie Julia Beatrice Campbell fonds is a rich collection of correspondence, reports, notes, scrapbooks, photographs and other records documenting her lifetime of volunteer service for which she was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1935.

One of the First World War related items in Minnie Campbell’s records is an autograph book which she titled “My Military War Album” dated 22 February 1915 at Inverary, her home on Roslyn Road. The album contains many signatures of senior military personnel with their rank and unit. These are usually grouped by the date (and sometimes a place) on which they signed.

During our commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the First World War, we are becoming familiar with many of the Manitobans who served in the First World War and whose records are in the Archives’ holdings. Sometimes we come across connections within the records. In Minnie Campbell’s war album, we were interested to find the signature of R. M. Dennistoun from March 1916 just before he left for England with the 53rd Battalion. (See the blogs of 8 August 2017 and 14 August 2017 for more information about R. M. Dennistoun’s war experiences.) It is great to make these connections!

Search Tip: Search “Minnie Julia Beatrice Campbell” in Keystone to find out more about her and her records.

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10 October 2017

Thanksgiving 1917: a harvest of plenty in Benito, Manitoba

Kate McKittrick moved from Ontario to Benito, Manitoba in the summer of 1917 when she married Gordon McKittrick. Their letters to Gordon’s family were found in the attic of a house in Thornbury, Ontario and were donated to the Archives of Manitoba in 1964.

In an October 9 letter, Kate wrote to her mother-in-law about how she and Gordon (also known as “Mac”) spent Thanksgiving Day helping with the harvest.

“We spent a rather funny Thanksgiving although pleasant, right after breakfast we went out in the country to help Staples dig potatoes, first when we got there Mr. Staples and Gordon went out to where the men were threshing and Mrs. Staples and I pulled two bags of carrots and beats [sic]. I pulled them while Mrs. S. cut off the tops. We did that right until dinner time, then after dinner we went to the potatoes. Mac dug while Mrs. S. & I picked them up. Mr. Staples being at the threshing, we did seven bags and believe me we were good and tired especially poor old Mac as he wasn’t used to such hard work.”

At this time the McKittricks were anxiously waiting to see whether or not Gordon would be called up to serve in the First World War. In the same letter Kate outlined their plans should he be conscripted:

“Gordon and I have planned that if he is called he will get a transfer east if at all possible so we will be nearer home and then any holidays he could get he could spend them at home. I would be oh so lonely out here if he had to train out here probably in another town to where I would be and even if I was in the same town every person would be perfect strangers to me and Gordon couldn’t be with me all the time so if at all possible we will go East as soon as he would have to enlist.”

As noted in our blog post of 28 August 2017, McKittrick was eventually drafted, and in the spring of 1918, Gordon and Kate returned to Thornbury where he joined the 1st Central Ontario Regiment.

Search Tip: Search “McKittrick” in Keystone to find out more about these records.

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2 October 2017

The S.S. Nascopie and Worried Loved Ones at Home

The Hudson’s Bay Company’s wartime shipping contracts with European governments were managed in part by Sale & Co., a British shipping and importing business. Sale & Co. was founded in England in around 1908 by the family of Charles Vincent Sale, who became the HBC’s deputy governor in 1916, and, in 1925, the HBC’s 29th governor.

The records of Sale & Co. are comprised mainly of correspondence between the company and the Governor and Committee of the HBC, dealing with the business of ships’ purchase agreements, insurance, and matters pertaining to particular ships. These include crew lists, such as this one for the Nascopie, dated Dec 1916:

These records also contain a few personal letters that reveal the concerns and fears of the families of HBC crew men, whose loved ones were sailing into conflict zones. In September 1917, the office of Sale & Co. received three letters from family members of Nascopie crew members. The three writers of the letters all inquire after their loved ones, since they had not heard from them in a long time.

Jane Santos, inquiring after her husband Jose, voices her fears, saying “some of his friends tell me they heard he died but I don’t think it is true.”